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Polling on SCOTUS ruling

Not surprisingly the Kaiser Family Foundation has a quick turnaround on public opinion polling to the SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act. The headline number is 41 percent – those that are unaware of the ruling:

As per usual the reaction to the ruling is divided along partisan lines:

So slightly more people in total approve of the decision. Again, though, what is more interesting to my eyes are the intra-party divisions. The fact that disapproval among Republicans is strong is understandable, but 12 percent disagree – fascinating. Now of course you could point out that a larger number of Democrats disapprove (16 percent), but how much of that represents strong support for single-payer models that seem less likely with the implementation of the ACA? I can think of no correlating Republican reasoning for bucking the party opinion.

Next we have the question of motivation – will the ruling galvanize party bases to turn out in November? Here is what Kaiser found:

My instinct is that the ruling won’t particularly matter either way come November. More Republicans than Democrats say the ruling will make them more likely to vote, but realistically the likelihood of their participation (based on opposition to the President’s policies) was set in stone in November of 2008. Plus, given the context of losing a years-long argument on the constitutionality of the mandate it shouldn’t be shocking that for a few days the loss will be more motivating than otherwise. Aside from all that, look at the total percent of those that say the ruling won’t affect their voting plans – 70 percent. I think that number will grow.

So what now? Where should opponents of the law focus their efforts? Most say not on the law:

I didn’t clip the chart showing this but the sentiment breaks down along party lines. Democrats (82%), independents that lean left (78%), and independents that don’t lean (51%) either way say move on to other issues. Republicans (69%) and independents that lean right (69%) say keep on keepin’ on.

Finally, my favorite graph continues to be the one showing only a minority (however sizable) that wants to repeal the law. This time it’s 38 percent: